The Micro Insurance Academy and its partners Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Indian Institute of Health Management and Research, and the National Institutes of Health (USA), come together form a consortium to upscale demand for health insurance among grassroots groups in India.

This program, known as WOTRO, addresses the critical unresolved social challenge of healthcare financing in India by identifying an optimum match between clients’ needs for healthcare, available supply of healthcare and demand for healthcare.

The tool used to determine this optimum match is a simulation exercise known as CHAT (Choosing Healthplans All Together). CHAT enables groups of individuals to design benefit packages by trading-off benefit types within a limited budget.

Previous research has revealed significant differences across locations in terms of medical needs, solvent demand and supply of healthcare found within poor communities. These differences warrant the creation of context-specific health insurance products.

WOTRO provides the added benefit of developing a cost-effective data collection methodology that determines the pre-conditions necessary for upscaling health insurance demand within a given environment.

The lessons derived from the program are currently used to compose a practical manual that should explain to stakeholders the process they must complete to design health insurance products that in turn fit local conditions and respond to clients’ priorities.